Respiratory muscle training is an essential training for athletes wishing to compete at a high level Respiratory muscle training helps athletes to prepare and get ready for high exertion programs. Restricting air intake during physical exercise can provide the respiratory muscles with an extra load, which in turn works the pulmonary muscles more intensely to strengthen them. Another function of the mask is to pool carbon dioxide during breathing, part of which is inhaled into the lungs to condition the respiratory center in the brain to a higher tolerance of carbon dioxide. This in turn reduces breathlessness during physical activity. Persons with breathing difficulties including asthma, athletes and healthy persons can improve respiratory muscle strength by breathing against resistance.
The treatment is achievable with the aid of masks which have been designed particularly for this function and which include a check valve that allows air to be inhaled with resistance whereas, little or no resistance is provided while the air is being exhaled.
Some of such masks include mask disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,554,746, to McConnell et al discloses an inspiratory muscle training device including an opening for the passage of air to be both inhaled and exhaled and an inlet permitting air to be inhaled to enter the chamber and to pass through the opening. There is provided an adjustable valve to vary the resistance to inhaling. U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,047, to Norell, discloses a therapeutic device for lung exercise which requires a mouthpiece, and has a rotatably adjustable air intake valve. U.S. Pat. No. 4,549,543, to Moon, discloses an air filtering face mask and the concept of a flexible face piece which conforms to the shape of the face of the wearer, and is held in place by scraps or a harness device.
However, the prior art provide separate passages for inhaling and exhaling, which may be worn by a user, in intensely vigorous exercise, without impeding the nature of the exercise conducted. Also, since the masks have manually adjustable valves and, since there is no way that the breathing restrictions could be correlated with the breathing restrictions, hence the breathing training cannot reach an optimum level.
Therefore, an improvement is required on existing masks to optimize the inhalation training for athletes and healing of other ailments as discussed above.